Welcome to CalEPA’s Earth Day Celebration

This month, on the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day, we are especially proud of living and working in California where residents, nonprofits, and government agencies understand how small changes and big ones work together to help save the planet. You are here because you want to find new ways to get involved and we want to provide it to you. So take a look around. We have activities and information for kids and the whole family, including a scavenger hunt, a musical jingle, videos, and tips. We also offer ways to stay informed all year long about what we are doing in your community and the state, and how to inform us if you have an environmental concern. Find out about the history of environmental excellence in California to see how far we’ve come and where we are going.

Whatever you do to celebrate Earth Day this month, tell the world and be an example to others by going to social media and including the hashtags #WhyISaveThePlanet and #HowISaveThePlanet. Follow along with the campaign at #CalEarthDay50.

We are all in this together.

Tea With Jared

Join CalEPA Secretary Jared Blumenfeld and special guests for online tea time. Jared and guests have fun, reflect on California’s environmental leadership during the past 50 years and discuss how our state is positioned to meet the environmental challenges that lie ahead.

For Kids

For Home

• Be an Energy Kid
• Visit NASA’s Climate Kids Webpage
• Visit NASA Science Space Place
• Go to Water Science School at the U.S.G.S.
• Complete an Activity Book
• Storybook: Faloofa and Fred
• Take Earth Day Quizzes
• Build a Hummingbird Feeder
• Build a Water Cycle to Get Clean Water
• Other Games and Activities

• Air Quality Indoors
• Children’s Health
• Eating Fish Safely
• Healthy Lawn/ Healthy Environment
• My Water Quality
• Prevent Pesticide Illness at Home
• Recycle
• Reduce, Reuse, Repair
• Toxics in Products
• Water Pollution and Conservation
• Report an Environmental Concern

Know Your Environmental History

Earth Day sprouted from unified public demand. Fifty years ago, 22 million Americans banded together for an urgent threat: to save the nation’s air, water, and land from a steady stream of toxins billowing from factories, cars, and energy sources. The nation’s industrial progress had come at the high price of poisoning the environment that keeps us alive. 

In the 1960s the nation was shaken by a massive oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara that coated California’s coast with millions of gallons of oil. Images of Ohio’s Cuyahoga River on fire after industry dumped toxic chemicals into it woke many to the danger of corporations polluting the nation’s air, water and land with no public oversight. A U.S. senator reached out to a grassroots organizer to create a day when Americans could make their commitment to the environment heard by policy makers. And Earth Day was born. Less than eight months later, Congress created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a response to this unified public demand.

• CalEPA’s History of Environmental Excellence
• History of Earth Day by the U.S. EPA